Volume 3, Nº 4 (2021)

The article examines the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on the rivalry between China and the United States. The analysis of the reasons why the United States unleashed the «new cold war», considering China as its main competitor at the international level, is given. It is noted that these reasons are interpreted by political scientists from different countries in different ways. According to the authors of the article, the long struggle between China and the United States for hegemony during the pandemic has moved into a new phase, in which the sphere of ideology has become a very important field of struggle. The US ideological offensive against China aims to restrain China's development and prevent it from challenging US hegemony. It is proved that, despite the fact that the ideological confrontation between the United States and communist China has been going on for many decades, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has seriously changed the forms of the US ideological offensive against communist China.

The article traces the reaction of the EU states in the initial period of the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, when there was a transformation from rallying to the division of society along different lines. In relation to arriving or already living, but poorly protected groups of migrants in different countries of the European Union, they were stigmatized as the main carriers of various diseases. The authors aim to identify the causes and consequences of discrimination and stigmatization of refugees and labor migrants in the EU during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic. The chronological framework includes the period of the first wave of coronavirus. The study analyzes in detail the manifestations of segregation towards migrants and the growth of xenophobic sentiments in the societies of individual EU states with the onset of the pandemic, separately examines the attempts of right-wing populists to strengthen their positions in the changed conditions, and examples of the exacerbation of many chronic problems of European states associated with migrants and their inclusion in host communities. Particular attention is paid to understanding the role of the media and the Internet space in the dissemination and attempts to end stigmatization. In the final part of the work, the influence of the indicated phenomena on the psychological and physical health of the societies of the EU countries is shown, on the change in people’s attitudes towards basic human rights and social values, as well as possible ways of solving the problem of rejection towards the indicated social groups.

At the moment, a small amount of research has been carried out in the Russian literature devoted to the analysis of the ideological foundations and concepts of the development of the Polish eastern policy. The purpose of this article is to study the key ideas of the eastern policy of the Polish state and their further evolution before the emergence of the Eastern Partnership in 2008. As sources, the author used materials in Russian, English and Polish, which made it possible to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the eastern policy of the Polish state. The author of the article concludes that the Polish eastern policy has deep historical roots and is based on a fundamental ideological basis. The article provides an analysis of the «Jagiellonian» and «Piast» concepts of the development of the Polish state. The key features of Poland's foreign policy strategy in the East, which are relevant nowadays, are associated with the ideas of Józef Piłsudski and Roman Dmowski - the idea of messianism and a civilizational mission. Today there is a revival of old concepts, the so-called «Prometheism 2.0». Studying the historical foundations of Polish politics will help in analyzing Poland's current foreign policy strategy.

The purpose of this article is to consider the reasons for the evolution of historical writing from the standpoint of an idealistic approach. The image of the past is created as a part of the picture of the world, within the framework of this approach, therefore the way of its creation directly depends on the main ideological ideas. With a change in worldview, the way of creating the past and its image change. A new worldview always requires the creation of a new past, as an important component of the picture of the world. The evolution of the main ideas leads to a change in particular historical theories that determine the historian's view of the past. Only secondary ideas and methods are taken from the previous history for forming a picture of the world within the framework of a new worldview. The main ideas of the previous worldview and the images of the past built on them, as well as the methods of creating these images, are rejected by each new historicism that replaces the previous one. The modern way of creating the past is the result of a gradual transition from a religious worldview to a rationalistic one with its anthropocentrism and humanism. It took several centuries for its formation. Competing images of the past, created within the framework of a religious and rationalistic worldview during the Enlightenment, led to the gradual displacement of the image of the past, formed from a religious standpoint, to the periphery of social thought. For the minds of the enlightened elite, various philosophical concepts fought, creating their own pictures of the past. They proceeded from different theoretical and methodological premises, therefore they created different images of the past.

The purpose of the article is to examine the history of bilateral relations until the beginning of the 21st century, thanks to the available information and based on an analysis of the actions of Moscow and Ankara, to assess the prospects for the transition to Russian-Turkish relations in the next few years. The modern world order, which arose at the end of the 20th century due to the collapse of the Yalta-Potsdam system and called «polycentricity», is an urgent problem in the scientific community (i.e, among analysts, scientists and experts). The foreign policy of this or that country has a significant impact on the development of geopolitical processes. As you know, Russia and Turkey play a key role in the international arena. This is evidenced by the holding of meetings of the Presidents and Foreign Ministers to resolve the conflict in Syria, the achievement of mutual understanding by Moscow and Ankara through the implementation of joint energy projects, the participation of the two countries in ensuring security in Central Asia and the Caucasus. At the same time, the prospects for Russian-Turkish cooperation are in the focus of attention of orientalists and Turkologists, and the presence of numerous publications makes it possible to determine their points of view on this issue.

For the first time for the 185th anniversary of the environmental observations in the Urals, information about the first caretakers Ekaterinburg Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory (EMMO) is presented. This is based on domestic and foreign archival data currently available on the world Internet. It is shown that the first caretakers have passed a wonderful way of life. All have made a great track record in the Mining Department, to which EMMO was originally attributed. They reached the general's ranks in the Rank Tables. On the scientific side, some of them became professors of the Mining Institute and members of the Scientific Committee of the Corps of Mountain Engineers. Some gaps have been restored in the biographies of Julius Reinke, Ivan Avdeev, Vasily Rozhkov and Konstantin Shugaev. It is shown that thanks to their activities, the Ekaterinburg Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory has become a reliable outpost of scientific research in the Urals. Now its successor The Ural Hydrometeorological Center has the longest range of continuous data. It is one of the key centers of global environmental monitoring as well.

The article of Ural historians shows the formation of higher chemical education in Yekaterinburg-Sverdlovsk in the period from 1917 to 1930. On the basis of new archival documents, the stages of its formation are reflected, which took place against the background of regular reorganizations in the rapidly developing city of the Urals. It was revealed that the process was non-linear, as it took place in conditions of constantly changing political, economic, cultural attitudes from the change of the political regime, civil war, new economic policy, to the first five-year plan providing for the accelerated industrialization of the country. On the basis of archival documents, the conditions of education of the first students of the chemical and chemical-metallurgical faculties are shown, statistics are presented on the number of students, the teaching staff, as well as on the structure of the educational institution and its funding. In addition, in the published correspondence between the university leadership and the higher organizations in charge of higher professional education, the complex history of the formation of a new specialty for the Ural region - a chemical engineer - is highlighted. Shows the key moment in the formation of this specialty and the transition to mass training of specialists associated with the decision to «chemizatsii» the national economy in a young state. Presented are scientists chemists and metallurgists who played a significant role in the creation and development of higher engineering chemical education in the Urals - Professor A.E. Makovetskiy, N.N. Baraboshkin, N.F. Yushkevich. Attention was also paid to the first graduates of the faculty, including O.A. Esin, A.K. Sharova, K.N. Shabalin, who later became famous scientists - leaders of scientific directions in the region and teachers of UPI.